Digital White Papers

LITIGATION AND PRACTICE SUPPORT 29 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER by Jason Bergerson of Kroll Ontrack and Brian Calla of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mello, LLC If you work in a law department or firm in support of litigation activities, you probably feel like your role and responsibilities are evolving with every turn of the calendar. At the intersection of law and technology is a continuous state of change in the midst of an enduring responsibility to collect and manage data in a defensible manner so it can be admissible in court. Legal and IT professionals charged with collecting data must understand that learning new and emerging techniques for data collection is just as important as mastering tried-and-true methods. The ever-increasing size and variety of data sets plus the need to preserve, analyze, review and produce data necessitate the use of new tools and require legal and IT professionals to question and sometimes abandon old paradigms. Understanding New Technology While technology evolution drives opportunity, it also creates new challenges. The advent of mobile devices, cloud computing and social media brought with it mountains of data for legal teams to collect and analyze during a case. On a typical day, individuals leave their digital footprints in countless places. Legal teams must understand that everything is evidence — from a casual Google chat conversation to documents opened or altered on a mobile phone. The ease of digital conversation and access to information facilitated by the cloud, social networks or simple text messaging create new challenges when aempting to collect data in a forensically sound manner. Understanding precisely how new technologies handle the data they create is far from simple. For instance, while cloud systems are cost-effective and convenient, they raise several questions for legal Data Collection: Embracing New Technology and Abandoning Old Paradigms Data Collection: Embracing New Technology and Abandoning Old Paradigms

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